Sherlock Holmes, Assessor of Wives and Official Best Friend
by JustlikeWater
Summary: In which Sherlock scares off yet another one of John's dates, a compromise is made, and Sherlock is given some surprising -and wonderful-news. Johnlock Friendship drabble. R&R, please! :)


**Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock or any of its associated characters. **

******A/N: Hey guys! I've had this little friendship drabble in mind for a while now, and since I came into some free time I decided to write it out! the middle-ish part borrows a bit from the "best man" scene in TSoT, because I couldn't resist writing out Sherlock's reaction to finding out he and John are best friends. :)**

**Enjoy!**

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"You're an utter git, you know that?" John angrily stormed around the small living room of 221B, grabbing his stray belongings and stuffing them into an overnight bag as he went. He imagined that if this moment were recreated into a cartoon, steam would certainly be coming out of each ear, his face as red as cherries with his eyes angrily narrowed into nearly nonexistent slits. Dear _God_ he was livid.

Sherlock watched him, unperturbed, from his chair near the windowsill. His sharp gaze intently followed John's frenzied movement and his mouth was slightly thinned with displeasure, but he otherwise looked entirely unaffected by his flat mate's clearly outraged state. He listened absently to John's many rhetorical questions and jabs _("You do know you acted like a complete prat, don't you?")_ without truly registering any of it as his mind was blatantly elsewhere. Eventually he stopped listening all together and turned to look out at the darkened streets of London, his forehead pressed lightly into the glass.

This only served to anger John even further.

"Hello? Earth to Sherlock?" He made a loud noise of frustration and ran his hands through his hair in a poor attempt to calm himself.

"Sherlock."

John's voice had now adopted that outwardly calm, but inwardly enraged tone, and the man in question seemed to recognize the impending storm that such a voice implied because he immediately abandoned his thoughts and turned to face him.

"Yes?" asked Sherlock, shortly.

"_Why _did you have to act like such a git to Karen? I actually fancied her quite a bit, if you care about that at all, and now she's probably never going to speak to me again!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes dramatically before burying his head in his hands.

"This. Is. A. Waste. Of. _Time."_ He muttered into his palms, the muffling of his voice doing nothing to soften the irritated edge of his words.

He resurfaced and regarded John with unimpressed eyes. "You don't like her as much as you think you do. In fact, the only reason you brought her here at all is because you actually _wanted_ me to 'scare her off'." He ignored John's indignant expression and continued, unconcernedly. "You dislike the messy way she eats spaghetti, because it reminds you of how Harry eats and as you harbor many negative emotions towards your sister, the association is bound to displease you. Her perfume was too strong, in both my opinion and yours, because you kept scrunching your nose every time she drew too close and you sneezed several times throughout the exchange. You liked her eyes, but since she is the kind of woman who prefers to cake on a lot of makeup, you knew you'd seldom get to see them sans kohl. Judging by the slight slumping of your shoulders when she arrived and the way you kissed her hello with your top lip tucked in, you don't find yourself all that attracted to her, yet you feel you ought to since she is the ideal 'pretty woman'. You felt obligated to go on the date because it's been a while since you've engaged in intercourse," John's face flamed at this, "And you are reaching an age in which marriage is expected. Although you've never been one to bother with conformity, you feel as if the time to find a nice wife and family is running thin, and with desperation comes a significant decrease in standards. _Thus,_ your date with Carey."

Sherlock stopped talking just as abruptly as he'd started, patiently waiting for John's brain to catch up.

The other man blinked, anger forgotten in the face of, once again, undeniable truth. He set his bag down along with the jumper he'd been in the process of packing, face slack.

Well, shite.

As much as he despised having to admit it, Sherlock was correct. He didn't like Karen all that much, but went out with her anyway because he _did_ want to find "the one" and figured he couldn't rule her out as a possibility just yet. However, as soon as she practically inhaled her meal and half-asphyxiated him with her perfume, he quickly decided she wasn't the woman of his dreams.

Perhaps it _was_ true that he brought her back to the flat in hopes of Sherlock deducing her entire life and offending her to the point of departure. (And Sherlock did not fail to deliver)

When he realized Sherlock was still staring at him and the silence had stretched on for several minutes, he coughed awkwardly and sat down. Now that he no longer had a veil of anger to hide behind, he felt utterly ridiculous for making such a scene. He glanced at his half-stuffed bag and sardonically asked himself where the hell he'd planned to go anyway. Mrs. Hudson's?

"Her name's Karen," he said at last, rather lamely, as he wasn't sure what else there was for him to reply with.

Sherlock stared at him quizzically, genuinely confused at the statement.

"What?"

"It's Karen, not Carey. You said Carey."

The bemusement cleared from Sherlock's face, instantly replaced by a scowl. "John, you know I detest useless information. I couldn't care less if her name was _Tiffany Teapots." _He huffed in annoyance and gracefully unfolded his crouched figure from the chair, rising to his full height before John. "I was doing you a _kindness. _You would have gone on three more arduous dates with that woman before deciding to break it off, so I saved you the trouble. _You're welcome." _

He regarded John haughtily once more, before turning to pluck his violin from its perch on the table.

John bit the inside of his cheek in frustration. Even though he knew his flat mate had been perfectly sound in all of his observations, he couldn't shake the slight tremor of anger and annoyance that rippled through him. Yes, Sherlock Holmes was a bloody genius that could read someone's life in the wrinkles of their clothes and sniff out their deepest insecurities and fears from the perfume they wore or the way they scratched their ear, but that didn't give him the right to prematurely reject John's girlfriends – or anything in his life, really – just because he could see miles ahead and John couldn't. He knew in some strange, abstract sense it was his friend's way of looking out for him, but it was also bloody frustrating to have opportunities destroyed before he had the chance to size them up himself.

It was quite obvious Sherlock didn't understand John's disapproval, as he continuously shot him furtive looks of both annoyance and puzzlement; even the piece he was playing sounded a bit snappish. (How Sherlock managed to make a violin produce humanesque tones, he didn't know)

When the detective realized he'd been caught staring, he quickly looked away, features smoothed into indifference. John sighed. He was going to have to make his argument sound as logical and straight forward as possible if he wanted Sherlock to understand, because if he tried to approach the topic with any sort of anger or passion he'd be written off immediately and ignored, as he'd been earlier when he was practically tearing their living room apart.

"Sherlock."

Sherlock stopped playing and removed the instrument from its perch on his shoulder, obviously irked at being interrupted. "Yes, John?" he asked, shortly.

"You were right about Karen. She wasn't much good for me."

The raven haired man quirked an eyebrow at this, clearly surprised at John's willingness to give in. Because of his ridiculous display of anger from earlier, Sherlock obviously hadn't expected him to calm down and 'see reason' so suddenly. However, the expression of surprise quickly cleared away in the place of haughtiness.

"Yes, John," Sherlock drawled, "I believe I established my agreement with that when I identified her caffeine addiction, three cats, insomnia, infidelity-riddled past, and tendency to babble nonsense. Or, was my impression of her not obvious enough?" he regarded his flat mate with a dull expression. "Please do tell me you have a more intelligent statement to follow up with?"

John continued, undaunted. "Right. Well, I just want you to know that I appreciate what you're doing, looking out for me and all, but you don't have to worry. I don't plan on marrying just anyone, alright? I'll find a suitable person once they come along."

Sherlock snorted and stared up at the ceiling conspiringly, as if something up there could share in his amusement. "Yes, _of course,_ John."

Refusing to rise to the bait, John continued, "Yes, so there will be no need to scrutinize my girlfriends anymore, alright?"

Sherlock gave him a blank look, gathered his violin from the table, and slumped back down in his chair. "Whatever."

John was just about to nod and consider things sorted, when it occurred to him that perhaps Sherlock's meddling was due to something else. The only other reason—aside from simply being a judgmental prat on occasion—Sherlock would feel compelled to scare off John's dates, would be to…to prevent John from leaving. John's eyes widened a bit as this occurred to him; it made a surprising amount of sense. With a pang in his heart, he remembered Sherlock's many insinuations that John was the only friend he'd ever had. No wonder he was trying so desperately not to lose him.

Well, John thought to himself, he couldn't let Sherlock continue to think that once he met a girl he'd never spend time with Sherlock again, because that simply was not true.

"Sherlock, you know when I'm married we'll still do things together, right?"

Sherlock's limp form was as rigid as a statue by the time John finished his sentence. He clenched his jaw, but resolutely did not meet John's gaze. "Yes, yes. I'm aware. But it doesn't concern me."

John rolled his eyes. Honestly, aside from Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes was the most emotionally obstructed person he'd ever met.

"Right. 'Course not," John said, clearly humoring him.

"John," began Sherlock testily, "do stop looking so smug. It's hardly becoming."

John barked a laugh at that. "Says the king of smugness himself."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but the amusement was quickly replaced by a look of contemplation. After a moment, he finally met John's eyes and hesitantly began speaking.

"I just want to make sure that when my flat mate is taken away from me – and don't look at me like that, John, I have no qualms about you marrying off and moving out someday – the person that does so is worthy. Of you," he added unnecessarily, cheeks turning a slight hue. He quickly darted his eyes to the objects around the room, clearly embarrassed at his own uncharacteristic display of what he considered "useless sentiment". He plucked restlessly at the strings of his violin, avoiding John's surprised but nonetheless warm gaze like the plague.

"Sherlock—"

"No."

"No?"

"John, please, you know me well enough; I don't enjoy long, heart-to-heart conversations over tea and biscuits."

"Sherlock, I wasn't—"

"Oh, but you were. Do not bother trying to deny that you were planning on launching into some gooey, _emotional _conversation about how you'll always be here for me." John began making a protest, but Sherlock quickly cut him off with a halting hand motion. "You are my flat mate and I will miss your company when you leave, but do not mistake my thorough inspection of your possible partners as a ploy to keep you here forever. I am merely being selective because I know you're too soft to do it yourself."

John made a noise of indignation. "I am _not _too soft to make decisions for myself, Sherlock!"

The pale-eyed man merely scoffed, as if the denial was so laughably pointless it didn't merit a response.

After that, the two men fell into silence; Sherlock unhurriedly running a cloth over the smooth wood of his violin and occasionally peering at John and John sipping his cold tea, wondering why his friend couldn't say something nice and simply leave it at that. Because what Sherlock said _had_ been nice; despite his blatant disdain for emotional attachments, he clearly had grown attached to John, however begrudgingly. John may not have been a 'proper genius' with the ability to read someone's soul in the crease of their jacket and stain on their tie, but he was certainly adept enough to see the subtle sadness and fear that sparked in those chlorine colored eyes. It was rather obvious Sherlock was afraid of him leaving, because he believed that would mean the end of their friendship. John sighed to himself, thinking that this was the one time the detective had ever been completely and utterly wrong about something.

John cleared his throat and broke into the silence with a casual but strong voice, "I suppose you're right; I am too soft. It's likely that I'll go on several dates with women that only merit one and kiss them despite my tucked in lip and endure their bad perfume and awful eating habits, but you know what? I _want _that ability. I want the freedom to date the most unpleasant women in all of London if I so desire."

Sherlock stared at him as if he were mad, but John continued, untroubled, "I know I'm going to make rubbish decisions, Sherlock, but you have to let me make those decisions. It's my right as a person to do stupid things, and no matter how baffling that notion is to you, you must accept it." He took a deep breath and sighed. "Let's make a deal about something, okay?"

Sherlock continued absently plucking at his violin and regarded him warily. "Alright…"

"I can date whomever I wish and bring them here without worrying that you'll tear them down when they don't reach your standards," he paused, "And in return, you will have final say on the woman I finally do decide to marry."

Sherlock stared at him uncomprehendingly. "You…you're telling me that I have the ability to make deciding judgment on your _wife _but not your _girlfriends?"_

"Yes," John replied calmly. "Would you like to know why I'm leaving such a big decision up to you?"

There was a pause in which John waited smugly for Sherlock to ask and Sherlock sat in stubborn silence, obviously itching for an answer. Finally, the dark-haired man raised his eyebrows impatiently. "Well, out with it, John!"

"Because," he said slowly, "Whoever it is that I marry will have to accept the way I live, the crazy things I may do, my good and bad habits alike, and all of the important people in my life." He could tell Sherlock was on the edge of his seat, impatiently waiting for him to reach his point.

"And as for those important people, well, I really just mean important _person. _And she'll need to accept that _person _for me to be with her, because they are such a big part of my life. My best friend, actually." John stopped talking to examine his friend's reaction to his words. Annoyed at the implied sentiment? Flattered? Embarrassed?

But when John assessed Sherlock's expression, he found only genuine confusion. The detective sunk back into his chair and bore an abruptly contemplative air, having seemingly descended into his mind palace to sort out John's words.

John rolled his eyes with a smile and waited for the utterly brilliant, completely oblivious man before him to return to the present. In the meantime he rose and shuffled to the kitchen to reheat his tea as it had cooled considerably throughout the conversation.

When he returned, Sherlock had not shifted from his position. His eyes remained glassy, unfocused, and clearly miles away from the present.

This was honestly ridiculous. "Sherlock," said John.

The man in question blinked out of his daze and refocused on him, pale eyes immediately losing their clouded appearance. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared shrewdly at John. "I don't understand why I get to choose your _wife,"_ he said in a tone that clearly meant _I still think this is bloody insane, "_when Mike Stamford is your best friend. Shouldn't he be the one to do so?"

And just when he assumed his flat mate couldn't be any more unaware.

"First of all, you're not choosing my wife; you're just getting final say on whether or not I should marry her," John explained, feeling slightly stupid as he said the strange proposition out loud, "And second: _Mike Stamford_? You think he's my best friend? I've seen him a total of six times in the past two years; do you really think if he was my best mate I would see him so infrequently?"

Sherlock shrugged, looking awkward. "I don't know, John! I don't know how..._best friends _act around each other! What, do they sit around and tell their deepest secrets, bake cakes and biscuits, and have bloody sleep overs?" He sputtered, uncharacteristically disheveled. "And if not Mike, then who?" He stared at John with utter frustration until something occurred to him and his expression cleared. "_Oh," _he said, with sudden clarity, "Oh, it's Gavin, isn't it? I should have known. He's fairly decent, morally and socially, and I'm sure you two bond over your mutual enjoyment of football – "

Wait, who? John's brow crinkled in confusion. "Sherlock, who is _Gavin_?"

In response, Sherlock rolled his eyes as if it were obvious. "Gavin? Gavin Lestrade? Detective Inspector? Scotland Yard? Am I ringing any bells here?"

John took a long swig of tea and ignored the temptation to pinch the bridge of his nose wearily. "Greg, Sherlock. It's Greg Lestrade. And _no _he is not my best friend either!"

Sherlock now had his brow creased so hard that it nearly looked painful. John could practically see the gears in his mind grinding at a furious speed, utterly unaware of the simple answer that the question merited.

"Well…well, is it My—"

John didn't even bother letting him finish _that _train of thought. "Sherlock I swear to god if you ask me if _Mycroft _is my best friend, I will throttle you."

Sherlock flared his nostrils slightly and glanced away, annoyed and red with embarrassment. "Once one has ruled out the impossible, then whatever is left, however improbable, is the truth," he muttered, "As odd as it would be, I couldn't entirely rule out my brother."

"Sherlock." John stated, his voice flat.

"Yes?"

"I'm not sure how you have managed to overlook the most obvious answer, so I'll give you a hint. His last name is Holmes and he is sitting across from me and if that isn't explicit enough, then his first name is Sherlock. Oh, and did I mention he is also you? Because he is. You are him, Sherlock. You are my best friend."

Sherlock stopped drumming his fingers on the chair's arm, stilled his shaking leg, and appeared to have ceased breathing all together. His absinthe-green eyes went wide and unblinking, locked on John's face in complete shock, as if John had just announced that he was marrying Mycroft next weekend. Silence stretched on for what felt like several decades.

Unsure of what to do, John just sat there, staring back at his friend, wondering how on earth they'd known each other for so long without Sherlock realizing the nature of their relationship. Did he really think they were only flat mates?

"Sherlock," John prodded, at last.

He only blinked in response.

"Is this really so surprising to you?" asked John.

Sherlock blinked again, this time in a rapid, fluttering succession that John privately likened to a hummingbird's wings. "I…" he began, clearly at loss for words. "You mean to say that_ I_ am your best friend?"

John smiled and nodded. "Yeah, of course you are."

Sherlock's mildly hysterical expression faded into something like quiet excitement as he began warming to the idea, his fingers resuming their drumming with gusto. "So, out of Mike, Lestrade, and your old army mates, I am your best friend?"

"Yes."

"Okay, but out of Mike, Lestrade, your old army mates, all of your girlfriends, and your colleagues at the clinic, I am your best friend?"

John gave him a strange look and slowly replied, "Yeah."

Sherlock was now grinning ear to ear and practically vibrating in his seat with delight. "You mean to say, that out of Mike, Lestrade, your old army mates, all of your girlfriends, your colleagues at the clinic, your childhood companions, all of our neighbors, everyone on Baker street, and _everyone you've ever met,_ I am your very best friend?"

John groaned and covered his face. "Great, now I've given you a big head haven't I—"

But Sherlock was past the point of listening. He leapt from his chair to retrieve his mobile from the table. He turned to John with a wide grin. "I will be perfectly happy to believe you, as long as you wouldn't mind repeating yourself. On recording." He held up the phone with glee.

"Sherlock, you can't be serious—"

"Oh, but I am. I must have this on footage, John, I truly must."

"Why?" asked John, exasperated.

Sherlock sighed as if the question was tremendously tedious. "John, no one has ever called me their best friend. No one. And now you have, but the memory of it isn't enough. I need solid, tangible proof. Mycroft will no doubt need evidence," he finished, expression souring at the mention of his brother.

"Fine." John muttered. He begrudgingly faced the waiting phone and deadpanned, "Sherlock, you're my best friend."

"John—no! With _feeling_, please. Also, say my full name."

"Sherlock Holmes, you're my best friend," repeated John drily.

Sherlock sighed and replayed the recording, dissatisfied with the sound. "My apologies, my thumb was over the speaker. I believe you will have to repeat yourself. This time, use my full name again, add more conviction to your tone, and make sure to mention all of those that are_ not_ your best friend."

Ten minutes and several adjustments later, Sherlock played the finished recording with a pleased smile on his face: "I, John Hamish Watson, declare that out of _everyone on the entire planet_, you, Sherlock Holmes, are indeed my very best friend. Also, you, Sherlock Holmes, are ten times better than your smarmy brother, Mycroft Holmes."

By the end, John was chuckling, in spite of the ridiculousness of it all. "Was that last bit truly necessary?"

Sherlock smiled in satisfaction and tucked his phone away. "Oh yes, quite necessary. The rest of it was wonderful, too. Now, as for your strange proposition: I accept."

"Do you now," said John wryly.

"Yup," he announced, popping the 'p'. "As your _best friend_ I will gladly assume the position of approving or disproving your wife. Until then, I suppose I shall leave you to your unsavory dating habits, but I assure you, when the time comes, all factors will be taken into account and I will make an unbiased, completely logical decision."

"Wouldn't expect anything less," John agreed, smiling.

"Excellent," Sherlock exclaimed, clapping his hands together once. "Now then, John, I have something rather important to ask you."

John raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Sherlock held up his phone and looked at it cheerfully. "How would one—hypothetically, of course—set a video recording as their ringtone?"

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**A/N: Thanks for reading, loves! Read and review, I adore hearing what you guys think!**

**Until next time, darlings! X0X0**


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